Food supplements sold in the UK will be controlled by new regulations from August 2005. Dietitians are keen to support legislative clarity in the control of food supplements, and hope that the new regulations and guidance will contribute to the protection of consumer health.

Dietitians, as experts in the application of nutrition science into dietary practice, are often involved in providing consumers with guidance on the appropriate use of supplements, and have also been involved in more general policy discussions on the safe use of vitamins and mineral supplements.

The implementation of the Food Supplements (England) Regulations 2003, and identical regulations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the 1 of August, has been anticipated with concern by the health food trade and by some consumer lobby groups, who have predicted a reduction in the selection of food supplements available to the UK consumer.

In practice, there are not likely to be any major changes to the vitamin and mineral forms available for product formulation, because the initial ‘positive list’ (a list of the permissible chemical forms of nutrients) has been extended by a derogation (ie. it allows exceptions), permitted with the submission of a dossier –  over 500 dossiers have been accepted by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA).

Unless there are specific concerns over the safety of these additional chemical vitamin and mineral forms, their continued use, through the derogation permitted in the EU framework directive on supplements, will apply until the end of December 2009. Manufacturers may wish to reformulate products in line with forms in the ‘positive list’, and some small changes are defined within labelling requirements, but most consumers are not likely to confront changes to the range or composition of food supplements available to them in the next few years.

Future planned discussions on the legislative controls of dosage levels may have a more considerable impact on the formulation of products freely available, and dietitians support a full debate of all the legislative options that support the protection of consumer health.

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